BEHIND THE
Driving Passion
Caringfor us in Egypt
When Mohamed El
Walili (right) retired
from the Egyptian
Army in 1977 after 24 years
some spent driving future
President Hosni Mubarak-he
became a tourist taxi driver with
an unusual specialty: driving and
caring for GEOGRAPHIC staffers.
He proudly keeps copies of issues
he has worked on in his car.
"Mohamed knows all the
places to go, all the people to see,
and he doesn't allow you to go
anywhere you could get in trou
ble," says photographer Ken Gar
rett, who has worked with him
since 1994. An added benefit:
KENNETHGARRETT
dinner at the driver's house. "You
sit on the veranda and watch the
sound-and-light show at Khufu's
pyramid," Ken says.
Photographer's First Century
One of our oldest veterans turns 100
Richard H. Stewart stood
outside his darkroom tent
in Alaska in 1928 (below),
a young photographer on his
first field assignment for the
GEOGRAPHIC. Dick went on to
many more assignments around
the world in his 42 years at the
Society; perhaps his most mem
orable photograph captured the
Explorer II balloon (below)
poised to lift off on a record
breaking flight into the strato
sphere in 1935. "I got it going
up, then got it going down," he
says. This month, Dick turns
100-a milestone his wife, Mil
dred, reached last August. "I'm
doing OK for my age," he allows.
"I guess I've been pretty lucky."
100 YEARS AGO
April
"Few appreciate the
enormous advances in
geographic knowledge
during the last one hundred
years . . . fully 60 percent of
the world's land area was
unexplored in 1800, while
scarcely 10 percent now
remains unknown."
-From "Advances in
Geographic Knowledge
During the Nineteenth
Century," by Brig. Gen.
A. W .Greely
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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC * APRIL 2001